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NOTES TO THE FIRST BOOK OF THE COURTIER by perspiration, the movements of this dance have a very salutary effect on the softer sex," "Travels in Italy" (Ed. Bohn, 1883), page 564. Note 59, page 15. The moresca (mime or morris-dance) seems to have been a kind of ballet or story in dance, often very intricate and fanciful. At the courts of this period, it was generally introduced as an interlude between the acts of a comedy. In a letter quoted by Dennistoun (" Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino," ii, 141), Castiglione describes a moresca on the story of Jason, which was thus performed at the first presentation of Bibbiena's Calandra before the court of Urbino, 6 February 1513. Note 60, page 16. Fra Mariano Fetti, (born 1460; died 1531), was a native of Florence, and beginning life as a barber to Lorenzo de' Medici, always re- mained faithful to that family. At Rome, during the pontificate of Julius II, he won the reputation and enjoyed the privileges of "the prince of jesters," and became even more famous under Leo X, upon whom as a child he had bestowed affectionate care, and who as pope did not forget his kindness. Thus in 1514 he was made Frate piontbatore, or affixer of lead seals to papal bulls, in which office he followed the architect Bramante, was succeeded by the painter Sebastiano Luciani (better known as " del Piombo "), and admitted earning yearly what would now be the equivalent of about £"1600, by turning lead into gold. While it remains uncertain whether he was more buffoon or friar, he had a great love for artists, and even composed verse. He seems to have continued in the enjoyment of fame and favour during the reign of the second Medicean pope, Clement VII. Note 61, page 16. Fra Serafino was probably a Mantuan, and had a bro- ther Sebastiano. He lived long at the Gonzaga court, where he was employed in organizing festivals, and at Urbino, where the few of his letters that have survived show him in familiar relations with other interlocutors in The Courtier. While at Rome in 1507, with the suite of the Duchess of Urbino, he was seriously wounded in the head by an unknown assailant, probably in return for some lampoon or scandal of his against the papal court. Note 62, page 17. This letter S was evidently one of the golden ciphers that ladies of the period were fond of wearing on a circlet about their heads. In her portrait the duchess is represented as wearing a narrow band, from which the image of a scorpion hangs upon her forehead. The S may have been used on this occasion as the initial letter of the word scorpion, and seems in any case to have been an instance of the ' devices ' mentioned in note 40. A sonnet, purporting to be the work of the Unico Aretino, was inserted in the edition of The Courtier published by Rovillio at Lyons in 1562 and in several later editions, as being the sonnet here mentioned. In its place, however, Cian prints another sonnet, preserved in the Marciana Library at Venice and possessing higher claims to authenticity. Some idea of the bald- ness of both may be gained from the following crude but tolerably literal translation of the second sonnet: 335